Following World War I, the Boston and Albany railroad was looking for more sustainable freight power to handle the railroad s grades at Charlton Summit and the Berkshire Hills at Washington. Back then it was not unusual for freight trains to use their 16 hour crew rules for traversing the 200 miles of main line. The railroad's answer was Lima Locomotive Works. With increases in train length and faster speeds needed to meet demands, the Ohio based locomotive builder took one of their "super 2-8-2" designs for New York Central and added an additional axle to it to create the first 2-8-4 in the United States. All in all, Lima built 25 A-1a's and 20 A-1b's for the railroad in 1926 and all were scrapped between 1949 and 1957. The A-1 featured 63-inch driving wheels, a working boiler pressure of 240 psi, and produced over 76,000 lbf of tractive effort from 28-by-30-inch cylinders. They ultimately were not suited for fast freight, but the A-1's proved to US